The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1887-04-02
WONDERFUL SIGHT.


III tuc SpLIuS VI 1910 Sdiu al oiu
resident of this village. ga sight was
witnessed at the Falls of Niagara that
had never been seen before, at least by
people then on earth, and in all proba-
bility such sight win never be wit
messed again. 1t was nothing more nor
less than the running dry of the great
cataract, or at least so nearly dry that
it is no exaggeration to call it SO. in
which condition the Falls remained for
one whole day."
1.-The winter of 1848 had been one Of
the coolest on record, and such ice has
never been known on Lake Erie since,
/ guess. as formed that season. 1t was
of enormous thickness. 1t was quite late
in the spring before the ice was
lsosened, even about the shores of the
lake. One day. think it was near
the end of April-a very stiff north
easterly wind came up, and its
force was so great that it moved the
great fields of ice, then entirely sepa-
rated from the shores, up the lake, piling
the foes in great banks as they moved.
The sight of those ice banks is described
yet by those who witnessed it as one Of
most awful grandeur. Toward night
the wind changed suddenly to the OPP
posite quarter, and grew into a terrible
gale from that direction. The lakes
surface was packed with miniature ice
bergs, and these were hurled back by
the gale with such tremendous force
that an impenetrable dam was formed
in the neck of the lake from which
Niagara river flows, end the great cur
rent of water which fnds its way from
the lake in the rushing channel of that
stream, to be dashed over the gigantic
precipice at the Falls, was so held in
check that not more than one-quarter
of its usual volume could find passage
through the immense pack of ice.
''As this pack was stubborn, it was
naturally but very short time before
the Falls had drained nearly all the
water out of the river. This, of course,
occurred during the night, and we
people who lived in Niagara Village
knew nothing of the phenomena until
next morning. remember that awoke
very early that morning, with the sense
of something exceedingly strange OPP
pressing me. 1t was some time before
discovered that the feeling came from
the fact that the noise of the cataract
was almost missing. jumped out of
bed, and on leaving the house found
that scores of others had been awakened
by the same circumstance, and were
hurrying toward the Falls to see what
the trouble was. We found that the
great Niagara Falls was only about one
quarter of its former volume.
1--WE had not heard of the trouble at
Lake Erie, and the terrible thought that
the Falls were running dry created a
feeling of alarm not easily imaginable.
The American channel had dwindled to
creek in comparison with it's original
proportions, while the British channel
represented some ordinary river in the
droughts of August. Goat Island was
rs big as two Goat Islands, as the
water had shrunk from every side oft,
leaving wide expanse of wet, Shiny,
Jagged rocks which no eye in that VIZ
cinity had ever seen before. The bed
of the Canadian rapids, far out into the
stream, was dry. as was the space be-
tween the lower end of Goat Island and
out beyond the tower. The rocks thus
exposed were black and forbidding,
giving the dry river bed the appearance
of tract of charred stumps. The
Three Sisters looked forlorn in their
enhanced dimensions. The great jet
of water which had, from time out
of mind, leaped into the air about three
hundred yards south of this group Of
islands in the great rapids, and which
is leaping there to-day, was not leaping
that morning, and, as some one re-
marked that day, the tremendous roar
of Niagara had subsidized to a moan.
1.-THE scene was at once desolate,
strange, and awful to contemplate.
The picture will never leave my mind.
The whole village was out exploring
caves, dark recesses, curious formations
in the rocks, and other remarkable fea-
lures of the cataract and rapids that no
mortal eye had probably ever gazed
upon before. These explorations were
made safely to the very brink of the
Horseshoe Rapids. A Mr.. Holley drove
a horse and buggy from the head Of
Goat Island clear to the spot where the
leaping jet Of water had always writhed
and foamed. He also cut several sticks
of timber near the brink of Horseshoe
Falls, had them hewed there, and hauled
them away with four horses. These
sticks-they were large, fine timbers-
are in the frame of some house at the
Falls now. This remarkable condition
of affairs at the cataract continued all
dav and showed no sion of change